Saturday, March 24, 2012

The European Union Delegation issues the following statement in agreement with the EU Heads of Mission in Lebanon:

"The EU Delegation deeply regrets the tragic death of Ms Alem Dechassa, a domestic worker of Ethiopian origin, and extends its condolences to the relatives of the deceased. We call on the Lebanese authorities to fully investigate the circumstances of the violence and rights violations perpetrated against Ms. Dechassa and to bring those responsible to justice.

Her death highlights once again the urgent need to improve the protection mechanisms and legal framework governing the rights of migrant workers in Lebanon.

The EU Delegation urges the Lebanese authorities to ensure adequate legal protection for all migrant workers and to develop and enforce effective policies that ensure the rights of migrant workers at all times. Persistent discriminatory practices need to be tackled.

The EU Delegation and EU Member States provide substantial support to help improve the situation of migrant workers in Lebanon, at policy level and through support to civil society organizations involved in promoting and protecting the rights of migrant workers"

(Beirut) – Lebanese authorities should act quickly to reform restrictive visa regulations and adopt a labor law on domestic work to address high levels of abuse and deaths among migrant domestic workers, a group of eight concerned civil society groupssaid today. The government should also announce publicly the outcome of the investigation into the recent abuse and subsequent suicide of Alem Dechasa-Desisa, an Ethiopian domestic worker.

On March 8, 2012, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI), a Lebanese television network, released a video [4] filmed on February 24 by an anonymous bystander in which a labor recruiter physically abused Dechasa-Desisa outside the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut. As she protests, he and another man drag her into a car. LBCI later identified the man beating Dechasa-Desisa as Ali Mahfouz, [5]the brother of the head of the recruiting agency that brought her to Lebanon [6]. Mahfouz agreed to be interviewed on television and alleged that his brother’s agency had been trying to return her to her home country because she had mental health problems.

Police arrived at the scene shortly thereafter, found the car still there, and took Dechasa-Desisa to a detention center. Following a request by Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, who maintains a presence at the detention facility, they transferred her for medical care two days later but did not arrest those who carried out the beatings. Dechasa-Desisa committed suicide at the Deir al-Saleeb psychiatric hospital in the early morning of March 14. A social worker from Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, who visited Dechasa-Desisa at the Deir al-Saleeb psychiatric hospital, told Human Rights Watch that a Lebanese forensic doctor examined her on March 10.

“Alem Dechasa-Desisa’s death is an outrage on two levels – the violent treatment she endured and the absence of safeguards that could have prevented this tragedy,” said Nadim Houry [7], deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should adopt long overdue protections to end rampant abuses against domestic workers and bring down their death toll in the country.”

Following the wide circulation of the video, the labor and justice ministers announced on March 10 that they were opening investigations into Dechasa-Desisa’s beating and ill-treatment. The outcome has not been made public and it is unclear whether the prosecutor will pursue criminal charges against Mahfouz. The Labor Ministry, which regulates recruitment agencies, has yet to report on any measures against Mahfouz’s labor agency.

“The Lebanese authorities only opened an investigation because they found themselves in the media spotlight,” said Houry. “The government urgently needs to address the root causes that are driving so many migrant domestic workers to despair.”

In 2008, Human Rights Watch documented deaths of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon and found that there had been an average of one death a week [8]from unnatural causes, including suicide and falls from tall buildings. KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation, a Lebanese women’s rights [9] group, compiled information about nine deaths in August 2010 [10]. According to Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, five Ethiopian domestic workers are currently at the Deir al-Saleeb psychiatric hospital after being transferred there from the General Security detention center.

Lebanese families employ an estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers, primarily from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Nepal. Domestic workers are excluded from the labor law and subject to restrictive immigration rules based on employer-specific sponsorship that putworkers at risk of exploitation and make it difficult for them to leave abusive employers. The high incidence of abuse has led several countries, including Ethiopia, to bar their citizens from working in Lebanon. The ban on official travel to Lebanon has not halted the migration of domestic workers and may contribute to women being smuggled or trafficked into the country.

The most common complaints documented by the embassies of labor-sending countries and civil society groups include mistreatment by recruiters, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, forced confinement to the workplace, a refusal to provide any time off for the worker, forced labor, and verbal and physical abuse. Despite repeated public announcements by Lebanese officials that they would improve conditions for migrant domestic workers, reforms have been limited. A compulsory standard employment contract was introduced in January 2009, but is only available in Arabic so far and provides far weaker protections than those available to other workers under the main labor law.

Efforts to introduce a new law to regulate the presence and work of domestic workers have failed to gain momentum. In February 2011, Labor Minister Boutros Harb proposed a draft law to regulate the work of migrant domestic workers that would keep the current sponsorship “kafala” system in place, but his draft law was abandoned as a change in government took place. On January 23, a new labor minister, Charbel Nahhas, publicly announced that he would look at abolishing the “kafala” system, but he resigned over unrelated matters a month later. The newly appointed labor minister, Salim Jreissati, has yet to announce any plans to put an end to the widespread abuses against domestic workers.

“The lack of legislated labor rights for domestic workers and restrictive visa policies contribute to domestic workers’ isolation, mistreatment, debts, and inability to escape from abuse,” Houry said. “The government should make reform of the sponsorship system a priority and adopt a new labor law on domestic work in line with international standards.”

Lebanon voted in favor of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers [11], adopted in June 2011, but has yet to take steps to ratify the treaty or bring itself in compliance. The ILO Convention establishes the first global standards for the estimated 50 million to 100 million domestic workers worldwide. Key elements of the convention require governments to provide domestic workers with labor protections equivalent to those of other workers, to monitor recruitment agencies rigorously, and to provide protection against violence.

Lebanon also has a poor record of punishing abuse against domestic workers. A 2010 Human Rights Watch report, “Without Protection: How the Lebanese Justice System Fails Migrant Domestic Workers [12],” reviewed 114 judicial decisions involving migrant domestic workers and found that not a single employer faced charges for locking workers inside homes, confiscating their passports, or denying them food.

A review of 13 criminal cases found that it took an average of 24 months to resolve them and that the prosecutions resulted in light sentences. The most severe sentence for beating a domestic worker, of which Human Rights Watch is aware, is one month in prison, imposed by a criminal court on June 26, 2010, against an employer who repeatedly beat a Sri Lankan domestic worker.

“Lebanese authorities should look into several aspects of Dechasa-Desisa’s death – the abuse captured on video, the lack of police investigation into the abuse prior to the video being circulated, and the circumstances of her death while in the care of a hospital,” Houry said. “The government should also adopt a national plan to improve domestic workers’ ability to report abuse and train police, immigration officials, and judges on how to better respond to these cases.”

Background on Alem Dechasa-DesisaDechasa-Desisa was a 33-year-old Ethiopian national from the Burayo neighborhood of Addis Ababa. She had two children. She arrived in Lebanon in December 2011, through a Lebanese agency, using irregular channels since Ethiopia has a ban on sending its citizens to Lebanon.

The social worker with Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, who monitored Dechasa-Desisa’s case after she was held at the General Security retention facility on February 24, said that she first worked with a Lebanese family for a month but was returned to her agency due to communication problems. She did not get paid for the first month of work. She worked for a second employer for a few days but was sent back to the agency again.

Dechasa-Desisa told the social worker that a recruitment agent beat her and threatened to send her back to Ethiopia following her dismissal by her second employer. She said she needed to earn money to repay debts she incurred in Ethiopia to travel to Lebanon and to send money to her family. The agent tried to take her to the airport twice to return her to Ethiopia, but she resisted and screamed at the airport. Upon returning to the agency, she tried to commit suicide by drinking Clorox. The agency claims she also tried commit suicide a second time by jumping from a car.

On February 24, the recruitment agent took her to the Ethiopian consulate, contending that she had mental problems and asking if she could be left there. A Lebanese activist who spoke to a consulate official told Human Rights Watch that the Ethiopian consulate allegedly refused and told them to take her to a mental hospital. The agent, with the assistance of another man, then appeared to physically abuse Dechasa-Desisa and force her back into the car against her will. That was the incident captured on video by a bystander and circulated on the internet two weeks later.

Shortly after the filmed incident, police arrived at the scene and took Dechasa-Desisa to a police station, and then to the General Security detention center for deportation. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that Dechasa-Desisa displayed signs of a nervous breakdown, crying incessantly, and that she was transferred to Nawfal Hospital the next day. After her condition did not improve, she was transferred on March 2 to the Deir al-Saleeb psychiatric hospital.

On March 8, there was a public outcry following the circulation of the video. The public prosecutor opened an investigation. A forensic doctor and a representative from the Ethiopian consulate visited her for the first time at the Deir al-Saleeb hospital on March 10. The Ethiopian consulate also announced that it had filed suit on her behalf. On March 14, Dechasa-Desisa committed suicide by reportedly strangling herself with bed sheets.

Solidarity with Alem Dechasa’s plight has continued to grow since the Ethiopian maid’s suicide nearly two weeks ago. Major media outlets,including The Guardian,
are paying close attention to the legal and social aftereffects of the
very public case. Both Lebanon and Ethiopia have announced their cursory vows
to “fully investigate” the incident, treating Dechasa’s death as a
single occurrence rather than the product of systematic neglect.
More valuable, and ultimately more constructive, are the civilian
responses from both in and out of Lebanon. Global Citizens Voices has
curated an extensive record of social media reactions to Alem’s tragedy. Check out two campaigns launched to address the plight of Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East here and here.
Lebanon hosts a sizable, internet-savvy activist community who devote
particular consideration to migrant rights. Their perspectives tend to
offer an evaluation of Dechasa’s death with the social and historical
context that governments disregard. For instance, a Lebanese blogger
recently skewered Ali Mahfouz’s appearance on a local news show;
Mahfouz is Dechasa’s former employer and the man caught beating her on
video. Mahfouz attempts to absolve himself by claiming that Dechasa was
insane – a claim he has sustained since his initial capture. The entire
piece deserves a read, but the conclusion is especially powerful:

Alem Dechassa was killed three times. Once when her body was violated in
front of her embassy and dragged into Ali Mahfouz’s car. The second
time was when she got so desperate and took her own life. The third time
was with the Lel Nashr episode that portrayed her as insane. The end
result is simple: the victim becomes the abuser and the abuser becomes
the victim. Well done New TV. Well done.

The Anti-Racism Movement, a migrant rights group based in Lebanon, responded similarly to Mahfouz’s deflection. Their brilliant piece further addresses the social apathy that perpetuates migrant and domestic worker abuse:

Today another domestic worker died. But today the sorrow
in me is not only because another lost innocent soul, but also because
you all knew who she was, and witnessed her death. And with your silence
you have participated in her murder. You murdered her when you didn’t
demand a law to protect her, when you didn’t object for the resignation
of a Minister who fought to cancel her slavery legal system called
Kafala.

Unfortunately, bigoted commentary periodically punctuates social
media reactions. Claims that the Lebanese, Arabs, or Muslims are
“barbaric” or “evil” offer no solution to the domestic worker crises. On
the contrary, such attitudes only deepen the chasm between employers
and employees. Effective initiatives seek to raise social awareness,
promote social change, and prompt legal reform – these are the
all-inclusive efforts championed by groups such as the Migrant Workers Task Force,
who organized a local and migrant dialogue at their student center.
Migrants from varying backgrounds expressed their frustration with the
failure of either the Lebanese government or their own representatives
to address the chronic mistreatment of domestic workers.
Ethiopian filmmaker and domestic worker Rahel Zegeye was among the migrant speakers, particularly criticizing the Ethiopian government for their resigned posturing,
which only appears to awaken in high-profile cases. In stark contrast
to the diplomatic desultory, Rahel’s emotional concluding statements
demonstrates that the fire ignited by Dechasa’s death will not end with
the Mahfouz’s punishment, but with the procurement of sustained social
and labor justice for all migrant workers:

If it was an American worker who is getting abused, I’m sure things
would not have been the same. I urge all of you to step up for action,
and I’m happy that we’re getting support from our Lebanese friends and
I’m sure we can do something to stop this. I do not want to leave dirt
for future generations of workers like the previous generations have
left for me, and I don’t care if I have to die for this cause.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

We at the Anti-Racism Movement have the honor to present to you "Shit Lebanese Racists Say"

Read the disclaimer below, watch the video and pass it on to your loved ones !

The Disclaimer:We are NOT implying that all Lebanese are racist. This video is meant to point out and shame shit racist Lebanese say. It is also meant to raise awareness on racist things we might say unintentionally.

The employees, who earn just US$300 a month on average, have US$100 taken from their pay packet every month to pay for visa forms, the Nepalese Embassy in Lebanon said.

Lebanese employees at the factory received a salary increase last month, but pay for migrant workers remained the same, despite rising cost of living across the country.

Following failed negotiations on increased wages, 22 Nepalese and 26 Indians went on strike demanding their higher wages and better rights.

Police arrived at the strike on Tuesday, with the factory's owners trying to deport the protest's three leaders – Nepalese Rajandra Kumar, Narayen Dahal and Indian Ravinder Singh.

However, the workers are threatening to leave en masse if the deportation move goes ahead.

"They are saying they want to send the three of them and the rest of them they want to let them work but I don't think the rest of them will accept that. All of them want the same rights – those three are representing them," Priya Subida, a representative of the Nepalese embassy in Lebanon, said

If we look a bit closer, we will realize that we are and have been
surrounded by madness narratives for quite some time. One recent “act of
madness” is the killing spree conducted
by an American soldier on 16 Afghani civilians, including 9 children.
Memorable others include the attacks and killings of Egyptian Copts by a
“deranged” egyptian man in 2006 in Egypt, school shootings in the US, and the Ford Hood shooting. These
acts of violence were considered “deranged” and “a product of mad
individuals” by both Egyptian and American governments and by no means
rational, intentional forms of violence. Somehow madness arguments make
stories of violence, racism, and terror less shocking and more
acceptable. They (acts of violence) become not the product of a violent
military and social system but an act of a deranged soldier.

***

As for me, the story of Nietzsche going mad one day at the sight of a
man abusing a horse keeps hunting me, and I wonder what my breaking
point will be. As I was going back home today in the Service, three
non-white non-Lebanese looking women were crossing the road when two men
on a motorcycle started screaming things at them and laughing, and the
two other women in the service started laughing as well “shoo 2alla?
Shoo 2alla? hahahaha” Is that funny, I thought. is everyone going mad or
am I the crazy one here?

The world community does not judge a country on its scenery and its culinary excellence alone, and the Lebanese people, who are so rightly proud of their nation and its history, must now confront the fact that racism in this country is real, and has serious, tangible effects.

One video is out and the world is outraged.
Everybody is writing and posting and reposting.
Everybody.
Even the Lebanese officials themselves are 'outraged'.
The same policy makers and doers who have done nothing on improving the living conditions of domestic workers are outraged now that their reputation is at stake.
They are not faking it.
Not at all.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

In short, the first thing to do is to break the embarrassment of domestic help down into its constituent parts: it is one thing having a cleaner and feeling embarrassed about it, because you should be doing it yourself; it is another thing having a cleaner and feeling ashamed because you offer no job security and no holiday pay and no contractual equity of any sort. It's all a bit of a fail, but you can always fail better.

The tragic and untimely death of fellow Ethiopian and mother of two Alem Dechasa has once again blown the cover masking the utter and complete lack of concern your government continues to show to the plight of Ethiopian women across the Arab world.
Alem did not have to die at this point in time nor indeed in this appalling way if you had only accorded her the support she desperately came to seek from you as her official representative in that country. Your unspeakable failure to act means an innocent hard working Ethiopian woman was savagely beaten and hounded around by a gang of Lebanese thugs outside your consulate until she was eventually taken to die in circumstances not conclusively known even to you the Ethiopian head of mission.
Sir, the primary duty of any diplomat is to provide protection and support to fellow citizens in a foreign country in which he/she is sent to represent his/her country. However, either because of your incompetence , lack of compassion and concern or perhaps total disregard to care for those you have been delegated to represent, you have stood aside when tens of Ethiopian women were subjected to some of the worst inhuman treatment at the hands of their employers.
How could you live another day knowing you could have prevented Alem's unacceptable death if you had acted promptly by intervening to stop her being overpowered and bundled away to her death in the back of a car ? Could you not have escalated Alem's daylight abduction and beating to the highest authorities in the land ? How much more desperate did this have to be for you to put a halt to your other duties and personally get involved in seeking an amicable outcome to whatever dispute she might have had with the employer/thug who abused her in front of the world ? I accept you could not have anticipated the death of Alem but surely you could have been more proactive in dealing with a situation so critical as this has been from the moment the Ethiopian young lady run away to your consulate.
You have told the Lebanese media how shocked you are about Alem's death. Surely the shock you have felt must be the result of your regret for failing to have done more to come to her aid.
One wonders just why the government which you represent has failed for so long to tackle this most urgent of problems for Ethiopian women in the Middle East. How long will this continue ? Could a more stringent and tighter regulation not help end this unspeakable misery ?
More specifically , as the head of the Ethiopian mission what will you do now to help bring the attackers of Alem to justice ? Or will you just brush this serious incident aside once public interest wanes in the days and weeks ahead ? Will you investigate what happened to Alem right from the start ? Better still, will you publish your investigation or whatever report you commission to ascertain the facts of her case including the facts surrounding her untimely death ? As I am sure you will accept , the circumstances of her death are mysterious. And only an independent Ethiopian-led investigation will deliver a result acceptable to many if not most people following this entire episode.
The lessons to be learnt from the circumstances of Alem's death are of wide reaching significance to the thousands of Ethiopian women scattered around the Arab world to make a living for themselves and their families back in our country. Hence, Ethiopians will be watching to see what you will do to follow up on Alem's case and explore ways to improve the wider problem of the general plight of young women in Lebanon and across the Middle East.

Monday, March 19, 2012

The “Lil Nashr” TV show, hosted by Tony Khalife, had Ali Mahfouz as
one of its main guests for its Saturday March 17th episode. Mafhouz is
the man that beat up the Ethiopian maid in front of her embassy. The maid has since committed suicide.
Using the platform of the TV show, Mafhouz tried to come off as an
affectionate man who deeply cared for the girl and was trying to sort
out her affairs. He even went further than that and said he would never
beat her up and that moment outside the embassy was unlike him.
The rest of this post will be assuming that Mr. Mafhouz was, indeed,
acting outside of his character – although I have to say that modern
psychiatry and psychology would assert that this violent behavior is, in
fact, within his character, whether he wants to admit it or not.
Now, Mr. Mafhouz goes even further and argues that the maid, whose
name is Alem Dechasa, was mentally ill and an unstable presence for him
and the people she knew. He even cites a coroner’s report that she was
having auditory hallucinations while still alive to “prove his point.”
The end result of the episode, which I was able to touch from both my
parents, is that many individuals have lost their compassion to the
maid and are now seeing her as an insane person, which clears Mr.
Mahfouz. He is not in the wrong anymore.
Let’s get a few things straight.
1) A coroner’s job is to examine a dead body for a cause of death,
among other factors. There is no way that a coroner (or medical
examiner) can tell if the deceased person they’re examining was having
psychotic episodes while they were still alive. It is beyond their
scope. It is impossible to tell if a dead person was mentally ill via
an autopsy and more importantly, there’s no way a coroner would have the
authority to write a report containing such information.
2) I am very dismissive when it comes to Lebanese media for many
reasons. But I never expected a TV show to host a man like Ali Mahfouz
without advocating the victim’s side. This is not how proper journalism
works, especially if it’s a TV station that supposedly respects itself.
For the entire duration of the show, the arguments of the Ali Mahfouz
camp were so front loaded that any attempt to speak on behalf of Alem
Dechasa were rendered meaningless. This leads me to point 3.
3) The purpose of the episode, which I’m sure Tony Khalife is very
proud of, was not to showcase the Alem Dechasa abuse in an objective
manner. It was simply to help clear Ali Mahfouz’s reputation and to
convert him from the man who led an innocent woman to her death to a man
who was simply escaping the ramblings of a lunatic. Judging by the
reactions I got from my parents, which I’m sure echo many other
households that decided to tune in, their goal was achieved. New TV must
be very happy with themselves.
It is a sad day when a victim’s reputation is tarnished just so an
influential Lebanese man can escape the consequences of his actions. A
few days from now, the whole affair will be forgotten. It has already
started. Those who had thought Alem Dechassa was innocent are now
believing the contrary. The rationalization of the Lebanese ego that a
Lebanese can never behave this way is starting to work full throttle.
The government will soon follow suit, especially as the wheels of Mr.
Mahfouz’s “wasta” start spinning.
Alem Dechassa was killed three times. Once when her body was violated
in front of her embassy and dragged into Ali Mahfouz’s car. The second
time was when she got so desperate and took her own life. The third time
was with the Lel Nashr episode that portrayed her as insane. The end
result is simple: the victim becomes the abuser and the abuser becomes
the victim. Well done New TV. Well done.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Concerned Ethiopians in the Washington
DC Metro Area gathered in front of the Embassy of Lebanon Thursday to
mourn Alem Dechasa, the Ethiopian girl who died after she was attacked
and abducted outside the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut early this week. We
also expressed our outrage over the killing of Alem and presented our
demand to the Government of Lebanon to bring the individuals who
committed the crime to justice.

During the silent protest, First Secretary of the Lebanese embassy, Mr Toni Frangie, came out to speak to us.

Ato Tekle Sahlemariam, who spoke on our behalf, expressed his
gratitude to Mr Frangie for his willingness to hear our concern and
communicated to him that Ethiopians are seeking justice for the crime
against Alem.

Mr Frangie expressed his sadness about the death of Alem and assured
us that full investigation is underway. From his demeanor, one can tell
that he appeared to be genuinely moved by our grief.

All of us left the embassy feeling better because of Mr Frangie’s assurance that Alem will get justice.

The ultimate justice is of course to eliminate the Woyanne junta that
is the primary cause of Alem’s tragic death and the suffering of
millions of other Ethiopians. The Woyanne ambassador was watching and
doing nothing when Alem was dragged to her death. Probably because he is
one of those individuals who are profiting from the human trafficking
of Ethiopian women and she is one of his victims.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

It's been always really hard to explain
how a girl, a migrant domestic worker ends up committing suicide. And
what makes it harder is when this girl is killed and then claimed that
she had committed suicide in order to protect the Lebanese employer from
legal prosecution.

In the Anti-Racism Movement, we have been trying hard to follow up
these kind of incidents, and each time we end up hearing the same news:
"An alien domestic worker had committed suicide by jumping out of a
balcony, or burned herself or hanged herself in Mahala al-Jadeedah.

In the Anti-Racism Movement we always try to verify the news and get
to the bottom of it and try to search for the answer in the building
where the incident took place, then we ask the neighbors and the
surrounding shops on whether they have spotted the "suicided", then we
head to the police where answers should be provided. But the answers
are not given, and we go back to the employer to try to know the answer
why she had committed suicide.

Each time we do this. Sometimes where we get lucky to get answers
from the employer or obtain the standarized police report, the result
would always be the same:
"An incidence of suicide had been reported to the police, where the
police had attended to verify the incident with the presence of the
coroner who submitted a medical report that he had found no signs of
violence, rape nor struggle so he concludes that it's a suicide
incident." And what's so strange that none of the lifeless bodies are
examined for toxicity, unless it's asked from the doctor by someone who
would pay the $200 cost of this test, but not the state of Lebanon. And
so the case is closed after this amazing report and the embassy or the
consulate is requested to permit the transfer the deceased body back to
her homeland.

Three years and we had been exposed to the same situation and same
report. Three years and not a single thing has changed. Only one new
thing has been done: once in the Police report: "… a body of a Nepali
domestic worker from Africa…"!

No change in the media, its coverage of this situation or its amount
of attention regarding this same issue. No change in police actions and
its professional investigation that it carries out in each of the cases.
No change in embassy or the consulate in protecting their right in
staying alive. And No one changes anything.

Today another domestic worker died. But today the sorrow in me is not
only because another lost innocent soul, but also because you all knew
who she was, and witnessed her death. And with your silence you have
participated in her murder. You murdered her when you didn’t demand a
law to protect her, when you didn’t object for the resignation of a
Minister who fought to cancel her slavery legal system called Kafala.
You murdered her when you saw how she was dragged by the hair and
beaten in the middle of the street, and only found it enough to share
the video on Facebook and object while setting in your comfortable
houses on your fancy computers. You murdered her when you were racist
to her sisters, when you forbade them from swimming in your pools, from
shopping in you markets and from eating on your tables. You refused a
weekly day off, you refused to eat their own food, you refused them
practicing their normal life without affecting their duties towards you.
You murdered her when you confiscated her passport and called her by
her nationality not by her name. You murdered her when you didn’t pay
her her salary, when you raped her and when your courts didn’t give her
justice, when you made her sit behind for being ashamed of her sitting
beside you. You killed her when you preferred sitting still in your
relaxed house rather than doing action and demonstrating for her
protection and when you didn’t support the law that guarantee her rights
as a human being. You killed her when you dealt with the legal
trafficking office that buys and sell the slaves. You killed her when
you didn’t ask why she had committed this action to her soul.

Why would a woman who left her family thousands of miles away,
leaving behind her house, her homeland, her friends, her kids and maybe
her first love, borrowing thousands of dollars to come to Lebanon
through many airports of Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and then
Jordan end up in Beirut airport? Sleeping on naked floors of airports,
trapped in small unwelcoming waiting rooms only to get to Beirut, to be
led and delivered as a goat. Brought to the trafficking office to be
sold to the family that pays most and consider her as its own property.

Why did she commit suicide after going through all of these hardships
to only work hard for couple of hundreds of dollars to be sent to her
old mother and father or to her son and daughter to be able to have a
decent life and education, or to her husband to establish a work that
can elevate them from the hardships of the poverty or to her brother so
that he won't go beg in the street, or to save enough money so that she
would go back to her country to continue education?

Have you ever considered that she might have missed her family and never was she allowed to contact them?

Have you ever considered that she works 17 hours on daily bases with no rest?

Have you ever considered that she had not been paid her salary for
two years where her father might be homeless her mother might be dead or
her whole family might be strayed?

Or maybe raped?

Or beaten?

Or was forbidden from practicing her religion, tradition and culture?

Or had worked in three houses at one time ?

Never given the chance to visit her homeland through the three years of her work

Never been given food to eat more than once a day?

Slept on the naked floor in the balcony?

Aren't all of these enough reasons to commit suicide?

Haven't they killed her when they did all of this to her?

Does the Lebanese investigator need Sherlock Holmes to help him in finding the obvious?

Hasn't your indifference killed when you saw what happened to her and stood still as if nothing had happened?

You killed her three times, when you didn’t do her justice to her
sisters, when you didn’t move a finger for her and when she died and you
didn’t mention her name.

My grandmother had always told me: "those who are silent when there's injustice are mute devils."

Alim Deseisa today is the victim of your mute devils.

When will you decide that you will stop being accomplices?
If you don’t get angry now, when will you be ?

This is the english translation of the below response by Ali from ARM.
*****

It's been always really hard to explain how a girl, a migrant domestic worker ends up committing suicide. And what makes it harder is when this girl is killed and then claimed that she had committed suicide in order to protect the Lebanese employer from legal prosecution.

In the Anti-Racism Movement, we have been trying hard to follow up these kind of incidents, and each time we end up hearing the same news: "An alien domestic worker had committed suicide by jumping out of a balcony, or burned herself or hanged herself in Mahala al-Jadeedah.

In the Anti-Racism Movement we always try to verify the news and get to the bottom of it and try to search for the answer in the building where the incident took place, then we ask the neighbors and the surrounding shops on whether they have spotted the "suicided", then we head to the police where answers should be provided. But the answers are not given, and we go back to the employer to try to know the answer why she had committed suicide.

Each time we do this. Sometimes where we get lucky to get answers from the employer or obtain the standarized police report, the result would always be the same:

"An incidence of suicide had been reported to the police, where the police had attended to verify the incident with the presence of the coroner who submitted a medical report that he had found no signs of violence, rape nor struggle so he concludes that it's a suicide incident." And what's so strange that none of the lifeless bodies are examined for toxicity, unless it's asked from the doctor by someone who would pay the $200 cost of this test, but not the state of Lebanon. And so the case is closed after this amazing report and the embassy or the consulate is requested to permit the transfer the deceased body back to her homeland.

Three years and we had been exposed to the same situation and same report. Three years and not a single thing has changed. Only one new thing has been done: once in the Police report: "… a body of a Nepali domestic worker from Africa…"!

No change in the media, its coverage of this situation or its amount of attention regarding this same issue. No change in police actions and its professional investigation that it carries out in each of the cases. No change in embassy or the consulate in protecting their right in staying alive. And No one changes anything.

Today another domestic worker died. But today the sorrow in me is not only because another lost innocent soul, but also because you all knew who she was, and witnessed her death. And with your silence you have participated in her murder. You murdered her when you didn’t demand a law to protect her, when you didn’t object for the resignation of a Minister who fought to cancel her slavery legal system called Kafala.

You murdered her when you saw how she was dragged by the hair and beaten in the middle of the street, and only found it enough to share the video on Facebook and object while setting in your comfortable houses on your fancy computers. You murdered her when you were racist to her sisters, when you forbade them from swimming in your pools, from shopping in you markets and from eating on your tables. You refused a weekly day off, you refused to eat their own food, you refused them practicing their normal life without affecting their duties towards you. You murdered her when you confiscated her passport and called her by her nationality not by her name. You murdered her when you didn’t pay her her salary, when you raped her and when your courts didn’t give her justice, when you made her sit behind for being ashamed of her sitting beside you. You killed her when you preferred sitting still in your relaxed house rather than doing action and demonstrating for her protection and when you didn’t support the law that guarantee her rights as a human being. You killed her when you dealt with the legal trafficking office that buys and sell the slaves. You killed her when you didn’t ask why she had committed this action to her soul.

Why would a woman who left her family thousands of miles away, leaving behind her house, her homeland, her friends, her kids and maybe her first love, borrowing thousands of dollars to come to Lebanon through many airports of Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and then Jordan end up in Beirut airport? Sleeping on naked floors of airports, trapped in small unwelcoming waiting rooms only to get to Beirut, to be led and delivered as a goat. Brought to the trafficking office to be sold to the family that pays most and consider her as its own property.

Why did she commit suicide after going through all of these hardships to only work hard for couple of hundreds of dollars to be sent to her old mother and father or to her son and daughter to be able to have a decent life and education, or to her husband to establish a work that can elevate them from the hardships of the poverty or to her brother so that he won't go beg in the street, or to save enough money so that she would go back to her country to continue education?

Have you ever considered that she might have missed her family and never was she allowed to contact them?

Have you ever considered that she works 17 hours on daily bases with no rest?

Have you ever considered that she had not been paid her salary for two years where her father might be homeless her mother might be dead or her whole family might be strayed?

Or maybe raped?

Or beaten?

Or was forbidden from practicing her religion, tradition and culture?

Or had worked in three houses at one time ?

Never given the chance to visit her homeland through the three years of her work

Never been given food to eat more than once a day?

Slept on the naked floor in the balcony?

Aren't all of these enough reasons to commit suicide?

Haven't they killed her when they did all of this to her?

Does the Lebanese investigator need Sherlock Holmes to help him in finding the obvious?

Hasn't your indifference killed when you saw what happened to her and stood still as if nothing had happened?

You killed her three times, when you didn’t do her justice to her sisters, when you didn’t move a finger for her and when she died and you didn’t mention her name.

My grandmother had always told me: "those who are silent when there's injustice are mute devils."

The tragic murder of Alem today should be a call to action. While her death is being called a "suicide" in the press, the conditions that led to it mark it as homicide. Alem is only the latest in a long line of migrant workers who travel across thousands of miles in search of a livelihood that will support their families. That same desire is what propels thousands of Lebanese to migrate to Europe or North America each year. Just as we do not condone the racism that Lebanese people experience abroad, racism that often leads to vicious attacks, imprisonment, and sometimes torture, we do not condone that behavior here.

By labeling Alem's death a "suicide" we remove our culpability in her murder. Everyone who stands by watching her brutally beaten and attacked by her sponsor is an accomplice in this murder. To call it "suicide" or to let Ali Mahfouz off the hook, the man seen in LBCI's video footage, for beating her in front of the Ethiopian embassy is to be complicit in her murder. The conditions that brought her to this point do not make Alem's case an anomaly. The fact that one migrant domestic worker dies every week in Lebanon illustrates that this is a pattern. It is a pattern based on racism, exploitation, and oppression. It is a system in which Lebanese people know that they can get away with these crimes against people who are darker than them, who they believe are inferior to them.

In an interview with LBCI TV, Mahfouz rationalized his savage beating of Alem by stating she was "mentally ill," citing a previous suicide attempt as evidence. He further justified his brutal attack by stating she refused deportation (http://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/23390/lbci-identifies-the-man-who-abused-the-ethiopian-d). The International Labor Organization (ILO) cites several factors that contribute to identifying domestic work as forced labor, including: debt bondage, confiscation of identity papers, non-payment of wages to worker; physical confinement; threat of denunciation or deportation; lack of freedom to change employers; and deception and false promises concerning conditions of work (http://www.kafa.org.lb/StudiesPublicationPDF/PRpdf37.pdf). These conditions would be enough to make any one of us mentally unstable or suicidal. While we do not yet know the specific conditions to which Alem was subjected to, we do know that the fact that there is a system of abuse of migrant workers and a refusal to abide by treaties Lebanon is a party to such as the UN Trafficking Protocol.

There are approximately 250,000 migrant workers in Lebanon at present, half of whom are undocumented. How many more of them will have to suffer the brutality of modern slavery before we do something? How many videos will we watch on Facebook or Youtube before we say enough? How long will it be before we challenge the racism that leads to the exploitation of those we hire to do the jobs that we are unwilling to do? How much blood are we willing to have on our hands as we sit by and watch yet another laborer's murder get labeled a "suicide"?